Path: csiph.com!usenet.pasdenom.info!aioe.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Mail Man Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc Subject: Re: PGP tools for dumb users -- suggestions? Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2012 16:43:20 -0400 Organization: Aioe.org NNTP Server Lines: 27 Message-ID: <507C7568.7C3DB3AA@Man.com> References: <5078A69C.A04FF120@Man.com> <51a491c9342442fe5b95c3c05eadd745@dizum.com> <50799E25.363EE774@Man.com> <507c3091$0$6920$e4fe514c@news2.news.xs4all.nl> NNTP-Posting-Host: jFz6ePD8ouMrJdp75Vv44g.user.speranza.aioe.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Complaints-To: abuse@aioe.org X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.79 [en] (Win98; U) X-Accept-Language: en X-Notice: Filtered by postfilter v. 0.8.2 Xref: csiph.com comp.mail.misc:300 Kees Theunissen wrote: > A user using email in a hostile environment like the internet > might want to encrypt her messages in order to keep confidential > contents confidential. You mean like if terrorists want to send e-mail to each other? > And might want to sign messages like invoices, offers, contracts > and other legal stuff in order to proof they were the sender and > to ensure the integrity of the message. I have been using email for about 24 years now, 17 of which have been part of a small bio-tech company doing business with universities, medical schools, pharmaceutical and medical device companies in US / Canada / Europe / Japan / Australia (and now China) and medical scientists in several branches of the US military. Some of our email transactions included patent law and strategy involved with patent licensing. Not once have I / we ever received an email with a PGP signature, or were asked to obtain and use PGP signing as a pre-condition of engaging in email communication. So I continue to ask who, beyond those with a fettish for IT technology, has a real-world need for PGP encryption or signing as part of email communication?